In the eyes of a model kit, all modelers are equal.

08/30/2018

Knowing one's limitations; The more things change, the more things...change

Howdy, everyone!

Have you ever seen the Clint Eastwood flick “Magnum Force”? You know, the second of the “Dirty Harry” movies, where a band of rookie cops goes out and kills the hoods that have proven difficult to bring to justice using “the system”? Their leader (and Harry Callahan’s superior), Lt. Briggs, plays the role as the cop who is calm and collected, and when he reminds Harry that his weapon has never been out of its holster, Callahan tells him “You’re a good man, Briggs. A good man always knows his limitations…”

Why do I bring this up? No, we’re not playing Movie Trivia. I would hazard a guess that most of us who build models seem to forget the fact that we do, no matter how much we say we don’t, have a limitation. Or two…

The limitations that seem to always catch me are (in no particular order) time, skill, money, and desire. Let’s examine, shall we?

Let’s start with skill. I’ve been at the game quite a while, and during that trip I’ve developed my skills into what I think is a pretty formidable tool box. There are things I can do easily and quite well. On the other side of the coin, there are things I cannot do as well as someone with my experience should, for no other reason that I either have not attempted them or have limited experience doing.

For instance, to me photoetched parts are “the Debbil”! Why? I don’t use them often. I find a lot of things that photoetch is supposed to “make better” actually don’t. When I really paid attention to such things, I was always curious why Airwaves and Eduard would etch a brass replacement—a flat brass replacement—for an item like a door actuator or control stick that had depth and dimension (these days, Eduard does these in their “Brassin” lines).

So, by and large, I’ve avoided photoetch—until now. I’m starting to gain interest again in ship models, which, quite honestly, require a modicum of photoetch to be “handsome”. Without the PE parts, they look almost naked. What this means is that I will become better acquainted with railings and other bits and pieces as I build ships.

The skills that are holding me back right now concern armor models. My poor little StuG IV is more or less complete, but for two things: weathering and completing the base. Now, neither skill is completely foreign to me—I’ve weathered armored vehicles before, using “Old School” methods like washes and drybrushing. I’m still learning some of the techniques that have been developed over the time since I last built an armor piece, and I’m confident that I can get the job done—once I start. The same goes for the base—I just need to knock some rust off and get to the job at hand. I’m close, really close…but somehow, I haven’t been motivated for whatever reason. More on that later…

Time can be a real issue. It was when I was working 14-hours a day, 6 days a week. It isn’t as big a crunch these days, but for some reason I don’t seem to be getting any further on projects that I have up until this point. Hmmm…

When you don’t have time to model, it kills your momentum on any project or projects that you may be in the middle of. That’s largely the case for all of the half-built models I have on the workbench.

Money. It can be the equalizer of everything. Fortunately, I have such a large stash that I probably have any kit I’d want to build close to hand (the only new kits I would like to buy are the Takom 1/35 Merkava 2 and the Eduard 1/72 MiG-21MF). See my earlier comments on aftermarket—most of the time, I don’t see the need. My decal stash is kept in two copy paper boxes, so I think I might be set there, too. No, at this point money isn’t really an issue. Don’t get me wrong—I still need income, but as far as buying new models? Nah, I’m set. Really. Most of my hobby shop trips these days are to look more than anything else. If I do buy something, it is either a consumable (paint, etc.) or a reference book. Money—or lack thereof—isn’t what is slowing my production these days…

So, that leaves what? Ah, yes—desire. Another way to put it is motivation, or lack of laziness. Bingo. I admit, lately I have been a bit of a slug. Why? Well, I had some heavy lifting to do when I was elected President of the IPMS Chapter, stuff that (in my mind) needed to be done. Add to that an upcoming model show that wasn’t really being moved along, so now I’m busy running the Chapter and doing all those little things that need to be done for a model show.. In the space of three months, I managed to craft a Constitution and By-Laws for the club, design and have medals made for the show, manage the club website to include show updates, fine-tune my meeting agendas, and write something for the newsletter.

Once the show was over, I was hammered by an upper respiratory ailment that took a while to kick. I was not feeling much like riding the bike, so I’d plant my fourth point of contact firmly on the couch and vegetate to whatever was on the TV. I’ve told you about my periodic funks, and this is perhaps the largest one I’ve encountered in quite some time.

Now that I’m on the far side of everything, I’ve had some time to think—which is something a man should not do. One of the items on the list is the ever-bulging stash. I actually wrote a short piece on stash management for the club newsletter, but the gist of it is that I really need to do a SIDNA sale. Since I was part of the Show Committee in June, I really couldn’t tie myself to a vendor table, so I’ve had to think of other ways to reduce the number of unbuilt kits upstairs. While it doesn’t all have to go NOW—I don’t need the dough to pay for a kidney transplant or anything like that—the sooner I can move it, the better.

For those who ask, “Why would selling off model kits help your production rate?” For me, the answer is easy—I go upstairs to work on one project, it gets stalled (for whatever reason), and I have hundreds of other potential projects staring me in the face. In a word, it is a distraction. Second, I believe it would help me get back on point with some of the collections I’ve outlined over the years. And, finally, it will give me more room to work. My workbench becomes cave-like at times…

Were there other things that lit a bit of a fire under me? Since you asked, sure. First, our June show—model shows are real good places to draw some inspiration. When you have a chance to look at everything up close during judging sure helps feed the brain. Next, a few weeks ago, we had a display at the State Museum, where we simply put models out for people to look at. I managed to bring several, including the Corsairs, the ER-2, and the F-111F. And, finally, I took a few Works In Progress to the IPMS meeting last week. As I looked at all three, I noted that none of them was beyond hope (I took the StuG, the Macchi C.200, and the 1/72 F-101B), and that if I’d only get up and actually work on them, I’d probably have them completed before too long.

Stay tuned.

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Last time we met, I regaled you with stories of Stuff We Used To Have. We covered paint, filler, and the like. This time, let’s look at model companies that are no longer with us…

I recall the first model magazine article I read that didn’t feature a kit from the American Big Three of my day (Monogram, Revell, Aurora)—it was the article on the then-new 1/48 scale ESCI kit of the IDF/AF Kfir C2, showcased in the March 1978 issue of “Scale Modeler”, the same issue that featured Shep Paine’s Marauder diorama (and my first taste of a modeling magazine)…

Now, I was familiar with the Mirage series of aircraft, having built the Revell 1/72 Mirage III kit a few years earlier. I knew the Israelis flew them. I had read a few short encyclopedia articles on the Mirage 5 and how the Israeli order was embargoed, and how Israel worked to develop an in-house replacement, but had never seen a picture of a Kfir. Here, in color, was a superbly built model kit, right there in the pages of my newly discovered magazine! But the article only raised questions…

ESCI? What the heck was ESCI? How do you say that? ESS-kee? E-sky? (For the record, it is an acronym for Ente Scambi Coloniali Internazionali, “International Organization for Colonial Trade”; most people pronounce it ESH-he). All I knew is that the kit got high marks, and I saw ads for others, including their only 1/48 WWII aircraft kits of the Hs.123 and Hs.129.

ESCI initially would design tooling, ship them to other firms (usually Italeri) to have them molded, then box and market them. In the course of their existence, the produced a series of 1/72 scale aircraft and armor that, for the most part, were excellent kits. They had a huge 1/72 scale armor selection by the time they folded, most of it exquisite. Their 1/72 WWI aircraft series, likewise, couldn’t be beat. In short, if the box said “ESCI” and “1/72 scale”, you could be pretty sure what you got was a winner…

Their 1/48 scale line wasn’t as extensive, and certainly not as finely done, but for the most part they were viable (several exceptions exist: their 1/48 scale F-100D and A-10A were the big stinkers of the bunch—interesting, too, since their 1/72 F-100D is still one of the finest examples of that aircraft in that scale).

ESCI also produced a line of automobile kits—European road racers, mostly—in 1/25 scale, and some motorcycles in 1/9 scale. Perhaps their most interesting kits were their 1/12 F-16 and F-104 cockpits.

ESCI kits had several things going for them, but first and foremost was that they were affordable. Their 1/72 scale kits were usually a few bucks each, and when Squadron would have a sale you could find them for as little as One American Dollar each!

Their fortunes waned in the mid- to late-1980’s, and by the mid 1990s the company had been sold to the ERTL Group. They were gone by the turn of the Century. AMT, also under the ERTL umbrella, took the F-100D and produced an F-100F kit, and produced an F-104G based on the ESCI F-104C.

Some of their kits are still available in other companies’ boxes--for a while in the early 2000s, you could find them in Revell GmbH boxes, and some are seeing new life in Italeri boxes. That’s a bit of a win for the better kits—as I said, I prefer their 1/72 F-100D to all other comers. Their F-104 series was also quite nice—now superseded by Hasegawa’s efforts, they’re a great “budget” choice when/if you can find them. Their 1/72 scale kits of the Sea Harrier, F-4C/J, F-4E, and F-15 still hold their own, too…

Otaki was a Japanese brand who was into a lot of things—airliners, aircraft, cars, even model railroad. My interest in Otaki came from their line of 1/48 scale WWII airplanes. The group included the P-40E Warhawk, P-47D Razorback, P-51D Mustang, F4U-1A Corsair, F6F-3 Hellcat, Ki-43, Ki-44, Ki-61, Ki-84, Ki-100, A6M, J2M, J1N1, K5W, Bf-109G, Fw-190A, and Spitfire Mk. VIII. These kits were quite well done, and for the most part quite accurate to boot. They, too, were affordable. Sure, they cost a little bit more than the usual Monogram kits, but they were less than contemporary Hasegawa and Tamiya kits in the same scale. They also had an interesting line of 1/144 scale kits, notably a Lockheed L-1011 TriStar and C-5A Galaxy, and an Aerospatiale/BAC Concorde, each of them superb. To wit, Airfix’s Concorde wasn’t as nice, Airfix’s and Revell’s attempts at a TriStar were lacking, and nobody attempted a C-5 until the Roden kit earlier this year…

By the time I discovered Otaki, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. I noticed that by the late 1980’s the boxes said “ARII” and no longer featured multiple color schemes and the color plate was missing. The plastic was still the same, though, so I was not really concerned at the time. Arii continued the line for several years, even sending kits to AMT, Airfix, and Matchbox to be packaged and sold in those boxes, too. In some circles, they still exist, now in Micro Ace boxes that still bear the Arii logos, so they’re not really gone, but to me, without the color plates and multiple decal options, they may as well be.

The interesting part of the Otaki saga is to this day shrouded in mystery and whispered rumor: before they went bankrupt, some disgruntled employees loaded some of the tooling on a boat and dumped it in Tokyo Bay! The kits usually associated with this heinous act are the two 1/144 scale kits, the TriStar and Galaxy. And, since we have yet to see these kits in anyone’s boxes for quite some time (Revell AG, Testors, and Doyusha all re-boxed the Galaxy while Otaki was still solvent), it stands to reason that there is some truth to the story. I wasn’t there, I can’t say one way or the other, but…

The last company I’ll talk about tonight is Monogram. Yep, *that* Monogram, before their marriage with Revell, before ProModeler, before the bankruptcy…

I discovered Monogram kits by chance. The first “look at the model I built all by myself!” kit I built was the Monogram Snap-Tite L’il Red Baron, the caricature version of the Tom Daniel classic. A year or so later, as I started down the path to being a “serious” modeler, I discovered their U. S. Navy aircraft—the SBD, TBF, SB2C, Hellcat, Wildcat, Corsair, and TBD. Of course, I just had to build them all and add them to the collection. As I would acquire and build each, I took notice of their other kits of WWII airplanes. As I was to learn, some were great, some were good, and some were, well, in interests of being fair, products of their time. And I built all of them, ignoring the things people cringe about today…

As I started to build jets, I was impressed by the quality of Monogram’s 1/48 kits. The cockpits were excellent, and the kits themselves would build up with no major issues—nothing I couldn’t handle, for sure. I built their F-100D, F-105G, F-84F, and a couple others while I was in college—the F-84F crashed and burned for whatever reason I can’t recall, but I built the same kit again and featured it earlier on this blog. Each of them was a treat to build…

Not long after I graduated from the Harvard of the Sky, I switched scales to 1/72 and discovered Monogram’s F-105G, F-4D, and EF-111A. I was just as impressed. The cockpits were veritable jewels, the completed models were lovely to behold in the display case, and, in case you forgot, they were affordable and, they were made right here in the good, old USA.

What made Monogram kits special? They had the right balance of detail and ease of assembly. They went together quickly. They didn’t need a lot of extra stuff, even after extra stuff became a requirement for some modelers. In short, they were just good, straightforward, well detailed model kits. Sure, they had the dreaded “raised panel line” disease, and some of them exhibited less-than-stellar fit (anyone who has even built their A-10A in 1/48 scale knows what I’m talking about), but for the price, they packed a lot of fun into those boxes.

After the mergers between Monogram and Revell in the mid-1990s, a lot of the kits began to appear in Revell boxes—the united company had decided to use the Revell name for business and financial reasons—and the plastic changed from that nice, hard, shiny non-brittle styrene that was a stock in trade from Morton Grove to the soft-ish, prone to warp, high vinyl/regrind content plastic that came from overseas. I still like a lot of their kits, but when I do build them I try to use an original Monogram boxing to get that nice plastic…

The new holding company who bought Revell GmbH and Revell USA now owns all the history and heritage that traces its lineage back to the old Morton Grove, Illinois location. That is good. It tells me that perhaps we will see these kits yet again. Hint, guys in Germany: Have your kits molded where the quality of styrene is better, you will make modelers world-wide happy.

There are other model companies who have come and gone, and I've talked a bit about some of them on this blog: Lindberg, AMT, MPC, HAWK, Accurate Miniatures, Hobbycraft Canada, and others. Fortunately, Round2 Models rescued AMT, MPC, HAWK, and Lindberg several years ago, while the Accurate Minuatures tooling seems to be in the hands of the folks at Academy (or at least the mold shops in Korea, whether it be Idea or ACE) and make regular appearances in Academy, Italeri, and (before the bankrupty) Revell GmbH boxes, as do some of the Hobbycraft Canada kits.

STOP THE PRESSES!

I originally had this post ready to post on Wednesday, 29 August, but as I usually do, I let it marinate overnight so I could proofread it the next morning. Well, as Ferris Buehler said, “Sometimes life moves really fast…”

The news was broken by the website cultvman.com yesterday: Atlantis Models, a company started in 2009, has announced that they have acquired some of the old Revell (and this would include Monogram, Aurora, and Renwal) tooling in storage at a warehouse in Oak Grove, IL. What exactly they got is still a bit of a mystery—the new Revell (Blitz Partners) owns most of the tooling that was being used at the time of the Hobbico bankruptcy.

Peter Vetri, President of Atlantis, states, “It’s a lifelong dream to own this historic tooling and archive material related to these molds; to be able to preserve the tooling is a real honor. We look forward to reissuing many classics that have not been available in quite some time. All of the model kits will be made here in the USA and all the tooling and the Archive have been moved from Elk Grove to our facilities in Deer Park, NY.

Atlantis Models has, in the past, re-issued or retooled several classic kits from the Revell and Aurora lines, so these kits should fit right into their lineup. I wish them well, and look forward to seeing which classics they have acquired.

Salvinos J R Models, a new American model company specializing in NASCAR Stock Car model kits, announced today on their Facebook page that they, in a deal reached with Atlantis Models, are the new owners of the Monogram NASCAR kits from the 1980’s and 1990’s:

VERY BIG NEWS!

You may have read some very big news from Atlantis Model Co. that they have purchased a considerable portion of the molds for Revell, Monogram, and some of the other Hobbico owned companies from Revell Germany that were stored in Revell’s Elk Grove, IL warehouse. Well we were fortunate enough to work out arrangements with Pete and Rick of Atlantis Model Co. and Salvinos J R Models are now the proud owners and guardians of the entire catalog of Revell and Monogram’s American made stock car molds from 1980 through the 1990s! In the very near future we will be adding these kits into our catalog with new drivers, new decals and some updated bodies to go on these platforms.

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So, there you are sports fans. I read about the Hobbico bankruptcy (I was still employed at the hobby shop when it all started to go pear-shaped for Hobbico), and I read about the Blitz Partners purchase, and I read all the doom and gloom about how “They’re gone! All those kits are gone!” Well, anyone who has been around the hobby for a while knows that old kits never die. They just get produced by different companies. As noted, ESCI kits are now found in a variety of boxes from Revell GmbH to Italeri, Otaki’s stuff can be found in Micro Ace/ARII and Doyusha boxes, and Monogram kits are going to be in Revell, Atlantis, and Salvinos J R Models boxes. Life is still good.

That’s all I have for now. Be good to one another, and, until we meet again, I Bid you Peace.